Sarah Palin and Jimmy Fallon Make Russia Jokes Like It's 1986

Philip Bump

What do you get when an American celebrity sits down for a conversation with the brash, baffling, hyper-conservative leader of a frozen, oil-rich wasteland? Jimmy Fallon, dressed as Vladimir Putin, doing Borscht Belt shtick with Sarah Palin.

Palin made a relatively lengthy appearance on the new-but-steadily-growing-older Tonight Show on Wednesday, helping Fallon flesh out a bit in which he imagined a conversation between the two P'ins. The gag: After Putin got off the phone with President Obama when the two spoke earlier this week, the Russian leader — for not entirely clear reasons — called Palin. So Fallon, in wig and drab suit, picks up his phone and it rings; Palin, stifling giggles, answers, and there you go. (We knew this bit was coming; Palin teased it on Facebook Wednesday afternoon.)

So what jokes did they make? You can probably guess many of them.

The jokes:

  • They made a joke about how Russia is close to Alaska.

  • They made a joke about how Sarah Palin is a mama grizzly and Putin fights bears or something.

  • They made a joke about how Palin sooooooooooooort of predicted Putin would invade Ukraine in 2008.

  • They made jokes about how former Soviet territories have weird names.

  • They made jokes about how Sarah Palin's kids have weird names.

  • They made a joke about the NSA listening in.

  • They made a joke about Putin is tough and Obama is a dumb wimp.

However, they did not make a joke about how Putin just flew in from Newark, and the relative fatigue of his arms. That's otherwise it, save the weird duet of Pharrell's old-and-steadily-growing-older song "Happy," with Palin doing a flute solo. And, of course, the plug for Palin's new TV show.

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And now we have ruined it all for you. But, really, once you saw the picture on Palin's Facebook page, you could have walked through the whole thing in your head.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/sarah-palin-and-jimmy-fallon-make-russia-jokes-like-its-1986/360076/

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